The 300 attendees at the 2022 Energy Conference Network Digitalization in Oil & Gas Canada heard from John-Paul Portelli who traced Canadian Natural’s (aka CNRL) digital journey. Portelli is head of technology scouting and works with on the company’s developing digitalization strategy, ‘finding good things that people are already doing and bringing them to other parts of the company’. CNRL is an unusual company in that there is no CEO. The company is operated by a management committee where working groups ‘come together to initiate and challenge new ideas, and to disseminate knowledge and know how throughout the business’. Employees are encouraged to ‘innovate at all levels’. The idea is that information sharing and collaboration will deliver better results. Portelli reassured suppliers saying ‘We don’t want your IP. We want a win-win’. On the collaboration front, Portelli cited the Clean Resource Innovation Network* (CRIN) a ‘a pan-Canadian network focused on ensuring that Canada’s oil and gas resources can be sustainably developed and integrated into the global energy supply’. Current CNRL work covers advanced analytics, robotics, RPA, data provisioning and 3D visualization. On the emissions front, the company is working with Bridger Photonics’ aerial Lidar monitor and is also working with University of Calgary to deploy its PoMELO methane detector technology. Other programs include AR/VR (notably with the HoloLens), and an Intergraph Smart Plant Review portal that provides as-built information on all plant engineering data. Corrosion studies are rolled-up into a Pipeline Criticality Ranking (PCR) rating for maintenance work. ML algorithms have been used for equipment surveillance, predictive maintenance and materials optimization (IronSight got a shout out - see below). CNRL is offering training to its employees, in the ML field, ‘We have stripped down the hype and put training in place to demonstrate what machine learning actually is’. Internal crowdsourcing allows people from different business units to weigh-in on each other’s projects. Portelli wound up his keynote asking for input from the vendor community, ‘we are always looking for new ideas, we want to innovate together’.
CNRL’s technology achievements are presented on the company’s technology portal.
Phil Demers described how TC Energy
is establishing a decarbonization pathway via an air emissions digital
strategy. TCE is aiming for a 30% reduction in GHG emissions intensity
by 30%, and for net zero by 2050, with a combination of offsets and of
carbon credits. A digital data fabric underpins these efforts with a
GHG Digital Concept that will drive outcome-based and cross-functional
digital solutions to address the emissions reduction goals. Enablon
software from Wolters Kluwer leverages information from an ‘emissions
data lake’ for reporting. Demers concluded that ‘the world of emissions
has changed, an IS/IT strategic partnership is now critical’.A report on TCE’s GHG reductions plan is available here.
Trevor MacMaster and Rob Southon showed how Veerum has built an automated brownfield digital twin with for the Clean Resource Innovation Network. Veerum was the beneficiary of a $776k CRI grant to further its Digital Twinning of Legacy Facilities project. This sets out to provide unified data for environmental, safety and productivity improvements with a ‘cost-effective, easy-to-maintain method of leveraging AI to connect enterprise information management systems to VR asset models’. The solution promises ‘cognitive augmentation’ with an ‘internet of behaviors’!
Michael Russell hails from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, the federal government’s unified source of expert guidance, services and support on cyber security. The CCCS provides a service to critical infrastructure operators spanning incident handling and cyber defense. While the government currently assesses the serious risk (damage or loss of life) to critical infrastructure as low, ‘cyber threat actors may target critical Canadian organizations to collect information and pre-position for future activities, or as a form of intimidation’. The CCS has issued a ‘ransomware playbook’ with advice on defense against ransomware and how to recover should you become a victim. ‘It’s all about effective cyber hygiene’ and the management of cyber risk ‘at a corporate level’.
Sheldon Wall (Suncor) cited a World Economic Forum study on industrial digital transformation which came up with a potential $100 trillion ‘value opportunity’ by 2025 for industry and society. However, a subsequent McKinsey report* has it that ‘in industries, such as oil and gas, digital transformations are challenging and success rates fall between 4 and 11%’. Wall puts this down to a digital skills gap that needs to be addressed with an integrated, multi-year digital talent strategy. Also companies need to establish a ‘value pipeline’ to identify, categorize and execute on a portfolio of opportunities. Wall warned against the risk of ‘Pilotosis’, an affliction that results in digital products that never go beyond the experimental stage.
* Unlocking success in digital transformations (McKinsey).
Vendor presentations came from Drishya AI Labs (AI-based engineering data extraction and smart P&ID generation), IronSight (Field operations), BrainToy (mlOS for low code/no code MLOps and Matidor (Esri GIS-based project management).
The next Digitalization in Oil & Gas Canada is scheduled for April 2023 in Calgary.
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